Tag Archives: little italy

Last week I celebrated the new WhitneyBond.com in style by hosting an official rebranding party downtown San Diego!

A HUGE thank you to the 300+ guests that attended the event including the real MVP, my Mom 😉 , Claudia Sandoval (fellow San Diegancurrently in the top 5 on MasterChef, you go girl!), Dining Out Magazine, Where San Diego and tons of my loyal, supportive and amazing friends!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, such as Chalk Art Paintings, Live Music and Delicious Food at Little Italy Festa!, I live in a beautiful and vibrant neighborhood in San Diego that is extremely lively with a ton of local events for its residents. One of everyone’s neighborhood favorites is the Little Italy Mercato that happens every Saturday from 9 AM – 2 PM.

It’s a great place to grab a coffee, breakfast and shop for the weeks groceries!

This week I stopped by Suzie’s Farms to pick up some fresh produce.

Suzie’s Farms provides most of the produce for Quality Social, a local restaurant and the location of my first “Chef Inspired Dish” interview! I decided to make the dish super authentic, I would pick up my ingredients at the same place they buy theirs! (Look for that post coming this week!)

They have everything from beautiful squash and beets, to gorgeous colorful carrots!

With food, the more color, the better!! I talk about the amazingness of eating purple vegetables in my Adventures at the Farmers Market post. (Similar concept, different farmers market, different city!)

They also sell a variety of sprouts that look super yummy! I didn’t pick them up this week, but they’re now on next weeks list!

My next stop was to visit my girls over at Tea Gallerie.

I was lucky enough to meet Krizia, the marketing rep for the company at my San Diego Bloggers Happy Hour. She was sweet enough to give me some samples of their amazing tea!

They were all amazing, but I am now completely addicted to the Masala Chai!

As you can see, they have a lot to choose from, and just check out all the benefits of drinking tea!

Delicious and healthy is my favorite combination!

Next, I went to pick up some fresh herbs to add to my growing window sill garden. Now that I’ve kept my little basil plant alive for almost 3 months, I was confident enough to give it a couple of friends! Meet Rosemary and Cilantro!

I’m going to take the advice of the sign and grow them 🙂

Although I wasn’t quite confident enough to purchase a larger plant today, I still had to get a picture of this beautiful purple kale!

I then cruised by some of my favorite spots, like the lemonade people!

Seriously, this lemonade is amazing y’all! When shopping at the Mercato this summer in the warm San Diego sun, this lemonade saved my life!

Then I cruised by the “Goat Cheese Guy”. Of course, being the Goat Milking Girl I am, I would have a goat cheese guy in every city!

Their Lavender Goat Cheese is killer!!

I concluded my lovely day in Little Italy with a delicious coffee at my favorite local shop, Pappalecco, where I sit to write this post to you now!

Happy Saturday Everyone! Make it a beautiful day and remember “When Nothing Is Sure, Everything is Possible!” – Margaret Drabble

Little Italy Festa is the largest Italian American Festival on the West Coast. I love living in this quaint San Diego neighborhood for events like this! One of my BFF’s PK, or as I like to call him, PKizzle, and I attended the event on Saturday afternoon.

Upon arrival the first thing that caught our attention was the free photo booth from La Jolla Photo Booths, for those of you that know us, this was an obvious first stop as we’re both known as “paparazzi” within our group of friends for our immense amounts of picture-taking!

Don’t worry about that top pic getting cut off, I was SO not prepared when the first shot happened!

Next, we traveled down India St to check out what else was going on.

We spent some time walking down Grape Street checking out all the amazing Live Italian Chalk Art that was going on!

These artists have some serious talent!

It is amazing that this is all done with chalk!

Although I have memories of making some pretty legit chalk art on my parents driveway growing up, I think these might be a little bit more impressive!

We then traveled back up India to check out what else the Festa had in store. We walked by the cooking stage where live cooking demonstrations were hosted by local Little Italy restaurants.

Although we didn’t catch one, I think this is such a cool idea and every seat in the audience was taken!

Next, we ran into these people…

They were out promoting their San Diego Gondola business where they take couples or groups out for a cruise across the bay in an authentic Italian gondola. Such a cute idea, now I just need to find a boyfriend to take me on one (haha)!

Then it was time for my favorite part, the food!

Although we could have gone the traditional route with Italian food from one of the many delicious restaurants in the neighborhood, we decided to steer off the beaten path and try some of Hunter Steakhouse’s tasty tri-tip which we had been smelling all day!

PK and I split their tri-tip sandwich to save room in the belly for our next stop!

We then wandered over to Stone Brewery. No, not for the beer, well not exactly.

We were there for the Beer Mac and Cheese.

Cheese. Beer. Sausage. In a bowl. Enough said.

Yum, yum, yum.

We took our bowl of mac and cheese (well the portion in which I hadn’t already annihilated!) and went to watch some live music!

This guy was amazing. I could hear him from my condo all morning before we headed down. I’m pretty sure I heard “My Way” by Frank Sinatra at least 6 different times throughout the day and I didn’t hate it, like at all 🙂

If you want to attend next years festivities check out the Little Italy Festa website for more information!

Hi, I'm Whitney! I’m a sports-loving, coffee-drinking, food blogger, the host of “29 Minute Meals” (premiering Jan 2017!), a contributing writer for TODAY Food, cookbook author and on camera food and lifestyle expert, regularly featured on news stations across the country! On my blog, you’ll find most recipes are made in 29 minutes or less, in one pot, or in a crock pot!
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